Grof

Grof, Gróf may refer to:

People:

Other:

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Ferde Grofé

Ferde Grofé (27 March 1892 – 3 April 1972) was an American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.

Early life

Born Ferdinand Rudolph von Grofé, in New York City, Grofé came by his extensive musical interests naturally. Of French Huguenot extraction, his family had four generations of classical musicians. His father, Emil von Grofé, was a baritone who sang mainly light opera; his mother, Elsa Johanna Bierlich von Grofé, a professional cellist, was also a versatile music teacher who taught Ferde to play the violin and piano. Elsa's father, Bernardt Bierlich, was a cellist in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York and Elsa's brother, Julius Bierlich, was first violinist and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Symphony.

Musical education

Ferde's father died in 1899, after which his mother took Ferde abroad to study piano, viola and composition in Leipzig, Germany. Ferde became proficient on a wide range of instruments including piano (his favored instrument), violin, viola (he became a violist in the LA Symphony), baritone horn, alto horn and cornet. This command of musical instruments and composition gave Ferde the foundation to become first an arranger of other composers' music and then a composer in his own right.